


The Inquisitor's Progress

by Madame_Butterfly



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9132106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame_Butterfly/pseuds/Madame_Butterfly
Summary: The weakened threads that held Thedas together have broken here is the inquisitors progress.How does one rebuild their life when their world is in shambles?When demons march upon a land of hysteria and despair the inquisitor has to make a choice.He is left with but two options - Collaboration, or resistance?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> It feels as if it has been years since I've posted. 
> 
> This is a little fic I've been dreaming up for some time now and have only just gotten around to writing it. 
> 
> Romance is not the major focus here but rather the development of the inquisitors character and as such this and the next chapter take part before Inquisition and interestingly before any of the games. 
> 
> Do be kind.

I am the The Honourable Senior Enchanter Agrippa Marie Berangaris Trevelyan-Mâtres-de la Pagerie, known affectionately to my friends and those who like me as Marie, born the first son and third child of the union of suo jure Countess Trevelyan and her first husband a minor Antivan noble. My eldest sister was my mothers heir and so I had was of little importance and as result had much freedom, even being invited to the court of an Orlesian Duchess, the grand lady Anna Rosa De la Pagerie after she saw me from afar at our own Court, a distant relation of my father and a childless dowager she wished to have me as a companion, and to strengthen our familial ties my parents agreed immediately. 

 

Aggrieved I was not for my position at our free marches court was as the Duchesse and many Orlesians said ‘quaint’. I as the third child had little time spent with either of my parents and so it was scarcely a sad parting for the only person I was sad to see as I left was my governess Fanny who told me in a letter that she was ‘pleased you’re with Her Grace, there you shall learn the ways of Orlais, you'll learn to speak Antivan and play the harpsichord and draw, you child will be an accomplished prize for the the one to wed you’ this at the time had comforted me and rid me of the little sadness I had to leave Ostwick, in my heart I knew that I would eventually return, whether it was for the death of either parent or something else I knew not, but my foreboding spirit knew I would one day return, little did I know it would be to become a circle Mage. 

 

I had lead a life of privilege and relative freedom for the first 20 years of my life, especially under the Duchesse from the age of 15, to whom I owe much, in that time many an event was to occur which would have a lasting impact until the day of my death.

 

One which has I believe always been present even years after it occurred has affected me even now. I have committed it to paper so I may remember it well. 

 

The following is an excerpt from my diary marked 9:26 Dragon, the day and month have smudged over the years but as I recall it was in high summer this occurred. 

 

It was today while I was taking tea with the dear Duchesse de Chartres in her petit salon we received a visitor, an old mystic who was thrice the Duchess's own advanced age and held the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes within her eyes. 

 

Immediately I was intrigued as to who this woman was, she as we were told by her Lady’s Maid Hilda had forced her way inside and insisted she speak to the ‘young man and duchesse’, evermore a player of the game the Duchesse invited the woman into her salon where she was presides as mistress of the household. 

 

It was here the mystic seized my hands, frightened and uncertain I stood frozen as this old crone stared into my eyes declaring them full of fire bursting to be free, I blinked rapidly looking between this mystic and the duchess who looked on in curious fear frozen too. 

 

‘You child will be the champion of a great cause, more than a champion, an Empress! You will hold hearts at your beck and call, you will lead your own destiny, whether you spin gentle diplomatic moves or brash and sudden is up to you’ next she inspected my hands, tracing with her fingertips the lines on my hands, your are destined for so much dear one, I’ have only once seen hands like your own, only in that of one grand man who is will lead to a great destiny, he will save us all from blight, alas this is not clear, we must consult the tarot’

 

We all kneeled at the table in front of us, the Duchesse gripping tightly my hand in anxiety, that she left imprints of her fingernails in them, there still visible now even in the small hours. 

 

Before me the mystic drew four cards from her deck, the hanged man, the 8 of cups and the 3 of cups and the empress. 

 

The mystic gasped ‘Child…’ she breathed deeply 

 

‘Go on, pray tell’ urged the duchesse

 

‘This is most unusual...I see the end of something old, I know not what that may be, followed by sacrifice and martyrdom, but followed by loss and abandonment, see here the blue is spiritual but he is leaving behind the cups in a stagnant once wondrous stream, but this followed by the three of cups, here is your future child, wherein you will rejoice for what is won and for being with those around you’ she now looked to the empress card her eyes fixing on it although it felt as if her beady gaze had never left my own ‘I see beauty and femininity, perhaps it is your own, perhaps the beauty is love, but too I see extravagance, the empress presides over masses, her sceptre lay limp in her lap, perhaps she is you’ 

 

But in my own layman terms she repeated herself 

 

‘I see brilliance and grand honours to this child of Ostwick, but I see a great misfortune who'll carry you to martyrdom and to a grave day of rebellion, from there on a whirlwind of emotion and life, it will seem as if you life a hundred years in the span of only one, I see love and death and all that come with the life of those who are grand, certain souls are grand only when a wave of misfortune is thrust upon them, indeed this is thee’

 

Yet before I could ask a question or much less stand the old hag rushed from the room pushing past the few attendants in the room and dashing through the circle of servants listening through the other side of the door. 

 

The duchesse helped me to rise ‘Dear lady I cried what hath the prophetess declared!

 

At this time I denounced this, this madwoman in reference to myself as the third child of a minor countess, ‘that is absurd, an empress! Who am I to succeed His Imperial highness? I think it not your grace and I am but plain and poor, perhaps I may wed a minor noble and be empress of a heart, but Empress of Orlais? This child of the Free Marches? I think not’.....’

 

I wish now I had heeded her advice, for within two years time at the age of 19 I had romanced a great Baron nearly ten years my senior, the baron, we were to be wed, our love and passion was a whirlwind of emotion. I now carried myself with the dignity and pride of seemingly Andraste herself I was told by the Duchesse who now was more of a mother to me than my own. I was to be consort of the Baron Ettiene La Mâtre IV. It was the Duchesse herself who taught me the etiquette of court and how to rouge my cheeks and apply my ceruse. 

 

I wanted to be perfect. 

 

Before long little Marie Trevelyan disappeared behind a white mask with black eyebrows and red cheeks. 

 

Soon enough we were wed, having been wed and widowed with a child, the only child of Etienne young Florentin now half an orphan my Etienne was free to marry whomever he pleased, and if they were to be wed, than the passive partner otherwise known as I was to be baroness. I had been referred to in certain circles as a trailblazer for lack thereof a better term, men who liked other men, or women who liked other women or those born another gender but were destined to be the other if viewed as quite the card were otherwise accepted, thank heaven we were not in Ferelden where we would have caused a scandal or the Free Marches where my prideful and political mother would have annulled our marriage and married me off to some Avaar barbarian to show me the error of my ways. The Duchesse put up my dowry, a sum of nearly 300,000 Orleasian crowns, an amount nearly the size of the Ferelden treasury, yet still it was rumoured her pockets were as deep as the Chantry’s and then some. 

 

Under this union I flourished further, still visiting my home for the past several years the Duchy d’Chatres often and the dear lady I regarded as my second mother the great lady to whom I owed my happiness. 

 

I visited Halamshiral whenever I could I was often a companion to the lady who would one day be Empress Celene, the lioness. 

 

Three years later my dearest Etienne died of his wounds,he had been hunting and was shot by arrow in his chest by a drunken noble who was swiftly taken to Val Royeaux to await trial. He died a slow and painful death, for that I can never bear the drunkards always to be found wandering streets blindly and hunting in a nigh on stupor. 

 

It here was the greatest tragedy to have ever befallen me, the man I had loved fiercely was no longer alive and so I was left alone to raise his child who was now the Baron la Mâitre, before long a broken heart left me bedridden, wealthy in my own right, the emperor had bestowed on me inheritance of my dowry the original 300,000 crowns, they meant nothing to me for my heart was in shreds. 

 

I laid bedridden and with a broken heart the Duchesse came from Chatres as soon as she heard of my misfortune to be by my side so that when I recovered I was with friends. Even Celene sent her own doctor to me standing on our friendship although we had not spoken for three seasons.

 

It was at this time in a fit of madness brought on by my grief was my affinity for magic unlocked and was I deemed by the Templars necessary to reside within the circle of my homeland. Bestowing guardianship of the young Baron Florentin and regency of his lands and my own, I left my dearest and now seemingly only friend the Duchesse Anna Rosa behind, before I left she embraced me as the child she never had, I knew not only was she my greatest ally but really the only family I had ever known. 

 

I left my home, I wept for the loss of my dear husband but also of my home, my home to me was not Ostwick but indeed it was Orlais, I now dressed as an Orlesian and had the accent of an Orlesian, indeed Orlais was my home. I was to leave and head to a land of what was by comparison near savage. As I crossed the borders of Orlais and Ferelden and to the Free Marches my heart ached and longed for my return home that I may be restored to my friends. 

 

Indeed it was a lonely march to Ostwick. 

 

Was this the martyrdom of which the old crone spoke of?

 

The very thought of it turned what once was disbelief and humour to a sense of dread that resonated deep within me.


	2. Start the rebellion without me

The circle had amazed me, tucked away was the tower away from the bustle of the city, the circle to be held such wondrous things, such mysticism and illusion, I was in an instant while exhausted from grief excited and yet scared of the uncertainty, unlike Ferelden or Orlais’ circles Ostwick was sedate by comparison. I'd heard awful things about the Templars and yet I found it difficult to believe, the Templars I had known hitherto were among the most honourable ladies and gentlemen I had known, even those escorting me from Orlais to Ostwick. 

We were tucked away from the world while the blight raged on, but soon enough the Hero of Ferelden emerged and he was a grand gentleman a Mage too, a circle Mage who is rumoured to have won the heart of now King Alistair though it never could be for he was gentry and a man while he was royal, a royal bastard for what it was worth, indeed it was worth a realm. At this time I was again reminded of that old crone who read my own future and spoke of a grand hero’s hand she had once read, indeed her words echoed in my mind still, for to date all she fortold had indeed came true. 

Of the privileged few I was, the upper and middle classes and of course the absurdly wealthy were afforded more leniency, I was still permitted what was of my station, I wore Orlesian attire, or Orlesian robes, I still wore my ceruse and rouge, my healed silk brocade shoes could be heard from one end of the room to the other and the hall indicating my presence, my heavy perfume would linger in rooms even after I left. 

Here I made friends with peasantry and gentry alike, I studied hard and for that my reward was within only a year of my being there my harrowing, indeed it was harrowing for there in the fade I saw my own love die over and over, so did the Duchesse and my little Baron Florentin of who's progress Her Grace wrote me frequently. 

Here I did battle, I fought demon after demon of the fade, I even was to befriend a benevolent spirit who indeed would help me in life. 

I soon overcame the great demon which caught me unguarded, I threw spell after spell, exhausting my own reserves were it not for the benevolent spirits intervention I may now be tranquil. 

I later found out my harrowing was among the worst and most disruptive the Ostwick circle had ever faced and were it not for the urging of the Grand Enchanter intervening on my behalf I would have been made tranquil. 

But after only a short while in the tower I was a fully fledged circle Mage, here was where I flourished, I studied much and I learnt all I could, I read all the books which made their way to me and above all was devout unto the Maker and Andraste. 

Even I had ended my mourning for my lost love and resumed life as it once was, for here had come the sun at long last. 

 

At one stage I was infatuated with a Templar a man my own age his name was Roland, he was the son a Grand Knight of the Order of Antiva, but nothing could ever become of it, regardless of our affections for one another. I shall never forget the sorrow in his violet eyes when we both decided nothing could come of our affection. What it was that attracted me to him was something to which I never knew, for by this time my skin was blemished and pitted, stress and late nights had begun to prematurely age me, and without my regalia and face paint I was plain and little, I like to think it was my eyes that beguiled this handsome Templar. 

With regular letters from the Duchesse and even Florentin I was confident all was well in Orlais and yet while surrounded by my friends amongst the circle and letters from the Duchesse and Florentin I felt dreadfully lonely, my heart aching to return me home to Orlais, indeed I just wanted to quit it all. 

So I threw myself into study and religion eventually I was told by the Reverend Mother were I not a Mage she would believe me if I were to tell her I was a sister, regardless of the fact I am a man. 

It was by my ninth year nearly tenth was I by now a Junior Enchanter created a Senior Enchanter, it amazed me that I little Marie Trevelyan-la Mâtre was now a Senior Enchanter, the first of both the Trevelyan’s and the la Mâtre to do so. My heart swelled with sinful pride at my appointment. I knew there was so much good I could do. I knew that when I eventually left to circle if I ever did there was a grand court somewhere I could be the greatest Enchanter had ever seen. Alas I had always been prone to that sinful pride. 

Before long just at the start of my tenth year a wave of rebellion swept through the circle, influenced by the debacle in Kirkwall one of my colleagues and dear mentor, a fellow Enchanter was murdered by her own student. 

It had reached us, this accursed rebellion had reached us. For the longest time I had believed that we Mages were taken to the circles because it was what was best for us, indeed many thought so on occasion both Mage and Templar alike, I considered myself amongst those who believed such rubbish. Before long my own loyalty to the circle was called into question as I had attempted in a desperate bid to calm the situation within our own circle before the right of annulment was called and acted upon, I was ignored and as a consequence my own students threatened to imprison me in my own quarters once shared with the murdered enchanter. 

At this time the mages had voted to disband the circles and somehow by sheer numbers overpowered the Templars, the Mages outnumbering the Templars 3-1 many were killed in the bloodbath for each Mage killed it seemed two Templars were cut down in their haste. 

I went to water at the sight of this travesty, it tore at my heart to see our own killing other living beings, I always had delicate sensibilities but this truly made my blood run cold, eventually whether due to my neutrality or desperation was accused of aiding the Templars while the Templars accused me of the aiding the mages, an unsteady silence befell the tower in the days that followed. I knew I had to leave immediately lest I fall victim to the rebellion. 

I soon packed a travelling case, in it were the few personal things I had acquired over my time at the circle, over 10 years all the possessions I had accumulated all fit in a tiny travelling. My old travelling clothes were now loose on my slender frame, they hung from me as if I were but little more than a twig. 

I must give my eternal thanks to one man who orchestrated my escape, that man was the Templar I had harboured feelings for all those years ago, Ser Roland, he aided me in my desperate escape standing on ceremony of our feelings for one another, even though the most he had said to me since that fateful day was ‘Lord This or Enchanter that wants to see you…’ to which I replied ‘Yes, ser directly’ and never another word. As we stood at present away from the main commotion, I stood before this excellent gentleman, as we stood it seemed as if the world around us had slowed to a steady halt, my heart beating so fiercely that I dare say he could see the loose silk of my travelling attire moving up and down, as we stood Roland removed his gauntlets and cupped my face in his hands, dropping my case I held onto his wrists and so with a single chaste kiss on the lips and a tearful embrace I thanked this man who if only the book of fate had been but a little kinder I could have loved him so fiercely that not even the Chantry law could overtake us.

I had always thought to love another person once in life you were among the very lucky but to love a second time? I felt doubly lucky, I regret that we could never pursue our feelings, when I left I knew I would never see him again. Love as it turns out was never for the likes of me and so in high winter under the cover of darkness in a white shroud embroidered by my own hand I fled the circle almost undetectable in the snow I escaped the certain death if I had remained. I ran through the snow, seemingly it got deeper as I advanced further, almost as if the snow itself was attempting to detain me, to urge me to return to the circle. 

 

To be certain I held the words all those years ago from that old crone at heart now, for she determined I would be in brilliance and so I was and then she foresaw martyrdom and sadness and so it had occurred to, by now I was left with option but to life for what she had told me. The sky was blackened by the ash of the fires of death and indignation, I had to live for the day for there was to be no tomorrow for now had come the whirlwind of rebellion. 

For me however the sun rose once again. I headed south to Ferelden, finding respectable lodgings in Denerim taking a small ‘quaint’ room at the local inn I found myself calculating my next move. 

Ideally I wanted to return to Orlais but I was still a Senior Enchanter and had to at least attempt to disrupt the rift between the Mages and Templars I could never stop it alone but I knew at least some would listen to reason even if I was an obscure and little Enchanter from Ostwick. 

My options were limited so I wrote the Duchesse asking what was best in her judgement. She was still my dearest and oldest friend, like a second mother to me she was. At mention of the Duchesse and I, my heart would always fill with that sinful pride to which I had become accustomed. 

She responded she knew of Divine Justinia V’s conclave, a meeting of Templars Mages and Grand Clerics. She encouraged me to attend my ranking as Senior Enchanter and as a Baron’s consort gave me a right to be present. She financed my journey and sent my formal regalia so that I may be dressed in a manner befitting my station. 

And so my dearest friend restored me to my station. 

With funds sent to me by the Duchesse I hired a carriage and guards to escort me to the Conclave. 

A most melancholy progress it was for here my eyes saw the true horrors of rebellion, there dear reader was no kindness of that I can assure thee.   
On the roads I saw the corpses of refugees struck down by the Mages and Templar alike, I saw Mages mercilessly torn asunder by Templars and their swords, but too I saw Templars flesh torn and melted by fire and ice. 

I was glad not to have made the journey alone for I fear I may not have made it past Lake Calenhad. 

Within four days and three night with anxiety gripping me at every turn we arrived at the foot of the mountain wherein at the summit was the temple where the Conclave was to take place, and so I began my ascent.


End file.
